COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) Every Ohio county is green on the Centers for Disease Controls latest COVID-19 risk map, indicating that the federal health agency recommends no one needs to wear face coverings.
The new weekly map, published Thursday night, has all 88 counties at the lowest of three community levels. At green, the CDC leaves masks as a personal choice for everyone regardless of their risk to COVID-19.
In counties at a high community level (orange), people are urged to wear masks indoors. At medium (yellow), masks are possible for high-risk people if their doctor recommends it.
The CDC notes, however, anyone with COVID-19 symptoms, a positive test or exposure to someone with the virus should wear a mask. Immunocompromised people also have further recommendations.
Even when a county is green, the agency still recommends residents stay up to date with vaccines and get tested if experiencing COVID-19 symptoms. The CDCs guidance also does not override local, business or transportation mask requirements that may still be in place.
A month ago the CDC switched to its current orange-yellow-green color code for COVID-19 community levels, replacing the the former red-orange-yellow-blue palette. The new map is based more on hospitalizations (and the risk of being hospitalized) than cases.
This week is the first that all of Ohio is green. Last week, a handful of counties in southeastern Ohio were yellow.
The Ohio Department of Health on Thursday reported 3,668 coronavirus cases and 193 hospitalizations from the past week. At about 524 and 28 per day, respectively, they follow the recent downward trend since the omicron wave subsided.
ODHs switch from daily to weekly reporting earlier this month took inspiration from the CDCs updated data techniques and risk evaluation.
Data scientists looked back over time and said, What paradigm would help to best understand risk at a community level related to COVID-19, given the kind of data that we collect and is available? ODH Director Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff said Thursday.
A team of researchers from theUniversity of Gothenburg has just taken another step toward understanding how the immune system develops resistance against COVID-19.
For six months, the researchers at the Universitys Sahlgrenska Academy investigated 156 employees from five primary care health facilities who were recruited during April and May 2020. None of these employees had been vaccinated against COVID-19, and the majority of them had to work with infected patients on a daily basis during the height of the pandemic.
Get more updates on this story and more with The Blueprint, our daily newsletter:Sign up here for free.
They identified IgA (immunoglobulin A) in the respiratory tracts of several of the personnel who didn't catch COVID-19, which could mean they had an antidote in their immune systems all this time.
These antibodies are found naturally in mucous membrane secretions in the airways and gastrointestinal tract, where they protect the body by binding to viruses and other invading organisms.
COVID-19,an infectious disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, has claimed the lives of more than 6 million people since the start of the pandemic in early 2020. In fact, some researchers say the true number of lives lost to the COVID-19 by 31 December 2021 was 18.2 million, which is more than three times the official death toll.
The disease appears to affect some people more severely than others, with some experiencing very minor symptoms and others being hospitalized and requiring aid in breathing.The current study aimed to uncover health factors that appeared to offer COVID-19 protection for the unvaccinated.
We all have IgA," saidChristine Wenners, Professor of Clinical Bacteriology at Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, and senior physician at Sahlgrenska University Hospital, who is part of the research team. "Its found on the mucous membranes, and COVID-19 is an infection that spreads via those membranes. We thought it was important to investigate what happened when completely healthy people encountered the coronavirus, before vaccines became available."
Of the participants in our study, none whom contracted COVID-19 required hospitalization," she continued. "A lot of other research has concerned the most seriously ill patients, who have been hospitalized and in need of intensive care.
According to the results of the study published in the European Journal of Immunology, a third of the care workers developed antibodies to COVID-19, and theyfell into two distinct groupsbased on antibody patterns and COVID-19 incidence.
One group that exclusively possessed IgA antibodies never succumbed to COVID-19. Participants in the other group had IgG antibodies as well as T cells and got the sickness.
The participants who did not test positive or were unwell all had IgA antibodies. Other characteristics that seemed to provide protection against infection were being female and having a respiratory allergy.
The data, however, does not support the notion that those who do not have antibodies against COVID-19 have protective T cells, which area part of the immune system that focuses on specific foreign particles.
It should be noted that the majority of the COVID-19 vaccines are highly effective against severe illness, hospitalization, and death. In fact, as the Omicron subvariant BA.2 replaces its sister version, BA.1, as the dominant form of COVID-19 in many countries, researchers have discovered that two doses of COVID vaccination stillappear to reduce the risk of infection caused by the new subvariant.
Study Abstract:
The patterns of humoral and cellular responses to SARS-CoV-2 were studied in Swedish primary health care workers (n = 156) for 6 months during the Covid-19 pandemic. Serum IgA and IgG to SARS-CoV-2, T-cell proliferation and cytokine secretion, demographic and clinical data, PCR-verified infection, and self-reported symptoms were monitored. The multivariate method OPLS-DA was used to identify immune response patterns coupled to protection from Covid-19. Contracting Covid-19 was associated with SARS-CoV-2-specific neutralizing serum IgG, T cell, IFN-, and granzyme B responses to SARS-CoV-2, self-reported typical Covid-19 symptoms, male sex, higher BMI, and hypertension. Not contracting Covid-19 was associated with female sex, IgA-dominated, or no antibody responses to SARS-CoV-2, airborne allergy, and smoking. The IgG-responders had SARS-CoV-2-specific T-cell responses including a cytotoxic CD4+ T-cell population expressing CD25, CD38, CD69, CD194, CD279, CTLA-4, and granzyme B. IgA-responders with no IgG response to SARS-CoV-2 constituted 10% of the study population. The IgA responses were partially neutralizing and only seen in individuals who did not succumb to Covid-19. To conclude, serum IgG-dominated responses correlated with T-cell responses to SARS-CoV-2 and PCR-confirmed Covid-19, whereas IgA-dominated responses correlated with not contracting the infection.
The number of people infected with Covid-19 in the U.K. soared by almost a third in a week just as the government prepares to end free virus testing for most people.
About 4.25 million people currently have the disease, almost a million more than last week, according to an estimate by the Office for National Statistics.
NYC Health + Hospitals continues to urge New Yorkers to get vaccinated and boosted at its hospitals, Gotham Health clinics, and Test & Trace locations; sites remain open and convenient
New York, NY
NYC Health + Hospitals today marked two years since the public health system admitted its first patient in March with a known diagnosis of COVID-19 to NYC Health + Hospitals/Elmhurst. Throughout the entire pandemic, the health system in collaboration with the NYC Test & Trace Corps, tested, vaccinated and treated thousands of New Yorkers. At the peak of the first wave in April of 2020, the health system treated approximately 4,000 patients. Yesterday, there were fewer than 24 admitted patients with COVID-19 across the systems 11 hospitals. The health system also just recently opened its third COVID-19 Center of Excellence, a specialized clinic for patients with long-term COVID-19 symptoms, known as Long-COVID. A tribute to NYC Health + Hospitals employees can be found here, and a video summarizing the health systems response can be found here.
While the pandemic is not over, its important to mark the anniversary and remind New Yorkers that vaccines and boosters have saved thousands of lives, said NYC Health + Hospitals President and CEO Mitchell Katz, MD. Our heroic workforce has been on the frontlines since early March when the first COVID-19 patients came through our doors, and they did everything they could to ensure our patients could recover from this disease.
Since our fight against COVID began, our healthcare heroes have worked tirelessly, never giving up, leading us forward and saving thousands of lives, said Dr. Ted Long, Executive Director of the NYC Test & Trace Corps and Senior Vice President for Ambulatory Care and Population Health at NYC Health + Hospitals. Thanks to their efforts, we have provided New Yorkers millions of vaccines and over ten million COVID-19 tests, while always keeping our doors open for anyone who needs to receive care. We have kept our city safe through the pandemic, and as we learn to safely manage COVID-19, we will remain vigilant to protect our city from anything that comes our way.
Compassionate Care
Through the four surges to date, the health system has provided quality and compassionate care for thousands of patients at its hospitals and nursing homes. More than 116,000 patients have been discharged from its hospitals. The emergency departments managed nearly 273,000 patient visits. New Yorkers continue to trust the health systems heroic health care workers, its hospitals, and clinics for their care.
Vaccination is Still Key
NYC Health + Hospitals continues to vaccinate and boost New Yorkers. To date, the health system, with the NYC Test & Trace Corps, has administered over 1.7 million doses and continues to provide mobile vaccinations in areas of need, including New York City Schools, and offer at-home vaccination appointments. Eligible New Yorkers are still encouraged to get vaccinated and can make an appointment by using the health systems COVID-19 vaccine scheduler.
Test and Trace
The public health system built the largest and most robust testing and tracing operation in the country the NYC Test & Trace Corps. Since the program began, it has performed more than 10.5 million tests. During the recent Omicron surge, City-run testing sites tripled over the course of three weeks, conducting more tests than ever before. City-run testing reached a peak of nearly 67,000 tests performed on a single day, January 3, and averaged over 50,000 tests per day during the first weeks of 2022. In December 2021, City-run testing sites detected at least 133,000 positive tests.
Test & Trace continues to provide testing at over a hundred locations across the city and distribute millions of at-home tests through New York City schools, community-based organizations, libraries and cultural institutions.
Through contact tracing, the Test & Trace Corps identified 1.7 million contacts, providing millions of opportunities to break chains of transmission and provide those exposed the resources needed to safely quarantine or isolate. While the tracing program will formally wind down at the end of April, positive cases will still be texted by Test & Trace to be connected to guidance and resources to help them quarantine and isolate. New Yorkers who were exposed or test positive for COVID-19 can also be directed to an online Quarantine and Isolation Guidance tool that offers personalized guidance and quick connections to resources.
Continuing its focus on saving lives, Test & Trace also recently launched COVID Treatment Outreach or CATCH. The initiative will quickly contact New Yorkers at the highest risk of developing serious or severe COVID-19 infections, with a priority on those living in communities hardest hit by the pandemic. CATCH will ensure that life-saving oral antiviral treatments, monoclonal antibody treatment, and other healthcare resources are promptly delivered to those in need.
With the Citys Department of Education, the NYC Test & Trace Corps created the nations first COVID-19 Situation Room, which has enabled NYC to be the first big city in the country to reopen its schools during the COVID pandemic. In addition, Test & Trace created the first school testing surveillance program in the country, and regularly conducts over 80,000 tests per week to ensure students remain healthy and schools remain open.
Additionally, Test & Trace helped 33,000 people isolate at our Test & Trace Corps hotel, and delivered more than 2.2 million free meals to those in isolation or quarantine.
Recovering
In April of 2021 the NYC Test & Trace Corps launched AfterCare to support New Yorkers living with Long COVIDa wide rangeof new, ongoing or returning symptoms patients may develop after their initial COVID-19 infection. The program, which recently announced an inbound calling hotline for New Yorkers to speak directly to its health outreach specialists, connects prior Test & Trace clients who had COVID-19 with ongoing health and social needs to the full range of resources and referrals relating to Long-COVID, including NYC Health + Hospitals COVID-19 Centers of Excellence.
Just recently, the health system opened its third COVID-19 Center of Excellence at 815 Broadway in Bushwick, Brooklyn. The other two Centers of Excellence are in Tremont, Bronx and Elmhurst, Queens. All of the sites are located in neighborhoods that were significantly affected by the virus. These centers will ensure New Yorkers have access to the specialized care to address long-term respiratory, cognitive and mental health conditions caused by the virus.
New Yorkers can also schedule an appointment at these, or any one of the NYC Health + Hospitals facilities by calling 844-NYC-NYC (844-692-4692).
Contact: Press Office, 212-788-3339
About NYC Health + Hospitals
NYC Health + Hospitals is the largest public health care system in the nation serving more than a million New Yorkers annually in more than 70 patient care locations across the citys five boroughs. A robust network of outpatient, neighborhood-based primary and specialty care centers anchors care coordination with the systems trauma centers, nursing homes, post-acute care centers, home care agency, and MetroPlus health planall supported by 11 essential hospitals. Its diverse workforce of more than 42,000 employees is uniquely focused on empowering New Yorkers, without exception, to live the healthiest life possible. For more information, visit www.nychealthandhospitals.org and stay connected on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/NYCHealthSystem or Twitter at @NYCHealthSystem.
The nations public health agency now says on its website that people should use the most protective form of masks. While facilities can continue to offer patients surgical masks, facilities should allow the use of a clean mask or respirator with higher level protection by people who chose that option based on their individual preference.
The CDC confirmed the update after this article published.
Matthew Cortland, a disability rights advocate who has been pushing for this change, applauded the update.
CDC has taken an important step to limit the harm their infection prevention and control recommendations are doing to those of us who require health care, Cortland said. No one should be told by a hospital that they must remove a highly protective mask, like an N95.
The change comes after a POLITICO report last week found that hospitals around the country routinely ask patients and visitors to wear a surgical mask instead of their own N95.|Rogelio V. Solis/AP Photo
Many hospitals around the country ask patients to remove their N95s and replace them with less protective surgical masks, POLITICO found. That story spurred U.S. health officials to consider notifying Americans how to report facilities that they believe endanger them. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which regulates hospitals, wants patients to report facilities that request they remove their masks and replace them with surgical ones.
Health facilities, like all indoor spaces, have facilitated Covid-19 transmission throughout the pandemic. A record number of hospitalized patients in the U.S. were infected with Covid during the Omicron wave. Hospital staff and visitors often wear surgical masks in accordance with CDC guidelines but such masks put people at higher risk of catching Covid, according to studies, including some done by the CDC. Michael Osterholm, an infectious disease expert who advises the Biden administration, earlier told POLITICO that he had no doubt such masks contributed to the transmission.
N95s are some of the best respiratory protection available against airborne viruses, including Covid-19. Many people are several months from their last Covid vaccine shot, and while those shots remain highly protective for most people against severe disease, they dont prevent infection. Healthy as well as immunocompromised people rely on N95s to stop infections.
Though public health experts have urged the Biden administration for over a year to universally recommend N95s, the CDC has not done so. The agency and the White House have argued that even in hospitals, surgical masks provide sufficient protection in many situations, despite CDC research showing that N95s provide superior protection. The agency also says the public can wear cloth masks, which it found are the least effective in stopping Covid transmission.
CDCs choice not to set highly protective masks as the default standard of protection disproportionately harms chronically ill, disabled and immunocompromised Americans, said Cortland.
The nations courts are facing overwhelming case backlogs because of the Covid-19 pandemic and it could take years for the legal system to dig out.
Tens of thousands of legal cases ranging from minor thefts to civil disputes to murder are stuck in limbo in state courts around the country, a situation that has left some defendants waiting in jail and strained prosecutors and defense attorneys ability to do their jobs.
After getting FDA approval in December 2021, Merck's COVID-19 treatment pill is finally available at local AFC Urgent Care clinics.
PORTLAND, Ore. A newly approved COVID-19 treatment pill is now available at certain locations in the Portland metro area.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Merck's antiviral pill last Decemberfor for adults with early symptoms of COVID-19 who face the highest risks of hospitalization.
AFC Urgent Care clinics in the Portland metro area received it's first allotment of the pills earlier this week and started prescribing them to qualifying patients.
Dr. Andy Miller with AFC said adults with underlying health conditions and people over the age of 65 qualify for the treatment.
"The clinical trials were very compelling that this medicine cuts down the risk of hospitalization and death by 50% in the right patient populations," Miller said.
Dr. Miller said some patients taking the treatment initially didn't even know it was an option.
"It's four pills, twice a day for five days," Dr. Miller said. "We are able to dispense all 40 pills in a bottle and we hand it off to patients who qualify at the end of their visit."
The pills are free for patients because the federal government has already covered the $700 cost for each bottle as part of President Joe Biden's Test-to-Treat program.
"What we learned over the last few years is COVID is not going away and we need strategies to cope with it and get back to normal life," Dr. Miller said.
Merck's antiviral pill was also allotted to Rite Aid and Walgreens locations, according to the Oregon Health Authority (OHA), but it's unclear when that they will become available.
Dr. Paul Cieslack with OHA said the new treatment is great, but there are some limitations.
"It can't be given to children and can't be given to pregnant women," Cieslack said. "With those caveats, if that's the pill that's given to you, I would recommend it."
He added that Pfizer has also developed a COVID pillcalled Paxlovid, which has close to a 90% success rate in keeping people out of the hospital.
Hillary Clinton announced Tuesday night that she has tested positive for COVID-19 and is experiencing mild cold-like symptoms.
The former secretary of state revealed her diagnosis on Twitter, where she said she is feeling fine and credited vaccines for protecting against more serious cases.
Clinton said her husband, former President Bill Clinton, had tested negative and will be quarantining at home.
Im more grateful than ever for the protection vaccines can provide against serious illness, Hillary Clinton tweeted.
Please get vaccinated and boosted if you havent already!, she wrote.
Word of Clintons illness came hours after White House press secretary Jen Psaki said she had tested positive for COVID-19 and as a result would not accompany President Joe Biden to Europe this week.
Psaki said she had limited recent contact with the 79-year-old president, whose advanced age puts him at higher risk of serious illness or death.
Last week, second gentleman Doug Emhoff tested positive for the virus after his wife, Vice President Kamala Harris, spent the day with Biden
Another prominent Democrat, former President Barack Obama, also announced that he tested positive for the virus last week.
The Queens Health System will be offering its last COVID-19 vaccines at The Queens Medical Center-West Oahu this Saturday.
After that, Queens will be moving COVID-19 vaccination operations in West Oahu to EmPower Health at 91-6390 Kapolei Parkway at the corner of Kapolei Parkway and Keoneula Boulevard, which will begin offering vaccines on Tuesday.
Vaccinations at EmPower, a primary care center, will be available from 11:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. weekdays.
I would like to thank our dedicated team of caregivers at Queens-West who stepped up to provide vaccinations for our West Oahu community, said Jason Chang, Queens executive vice president and chief operating officer, in a news release. Their monumental efforts helped keep our community safe from COVID-19.
Queens has administered more than 405,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccines since December 220, including nearly 90,000 at the Queens-West vaccination clinic, which opened in March 2021.
Queens said it will continue efforts to reach underserved communities through mobile vaccination clinics. Queens also offers COVID-19 vaccines at the Queens Physicians Office Building II, Suite 203, daily (6:45 a.m. 6:20 p.m.) except Sundays, and at Queens Island Urgent Care-Kahala, 1215 Hunakai St, daily (8 a.m.-7:45 p.m.) except Sundays.
Both clinics offer the Pfizer vaccine for those ages 5 and older, and the Moderna vaccine for anyone 18 and older.
Appointments are available at covid.queens.org/vaccine or by calling 808-691-2222. Walk-ins are also accepted.
